The Etruscans & The Romans |
The antiquities were divided into two historical and cultural worlds: Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. They are very similar. Both complimented each other which became the foundation of Western Civilization. They occupied located geographically close to each other areas, there is almost at the same time, so it is not surprising that they are closely linked. Ancient Greek and Roman historical events are interconnected and have a great influence on each other. Civilization of Ancient Greece and Rome later became the basis for the emergence of European civilization, and had an enormous influence on the development of medieval and, consequently, of the modern world. The main objective of the essay - to describe the main features of ancient Greek and Roman cultures, to show their relationship, identify the main influences on the Western civilization. However, the Greeks and Romans created in the full sense of the new context of civilized harmonious culture, which became the foundation of the Western world that we are living in. The Western civilization inherited from Ancient Greece and Rome: two classical languages, Greek and Latin, a highly developed mythology, Christianity that was accepted by the Roman empire, great literature, an artistic and imaginative thinking, architecture, unsurpassed sculptures, refined art, science and mathematics, philosophy, formed the historical way of thinking, the original law, legal psychology, legal thinking and legal behavior, education, philosophy and many other fields in knowledge. This paper will argue the influence of Greek and Roman art, religion and politics on the Western civilization.
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The Roman elements borrowed from the EtruscansIn ancient Rome, architecture has reached unprecedented success both in its construction and engineering, and in the ensemble expression. The Romans understood the balance and a relationship between art forms and space. In the 1st century BC, the Romans developed the concrete which allowed them to build bigger and taller buildings. The Romans needed their art and their architecture to be practical and useful. They planned their cities and building the bridges and aqueducts, roads, harbors, residential buildings to last a long time. Even their art told the stories of heroic wins of their emperors. When we are looking at Greek architecture, we see a perfect geometry. The architects believed that the buildings must be symmetrical and perfectly proportioned. The Greeks used the columns (Doric, Ionic and Corinthian) into use that they invented in their perfectly built rectangular temples that. All those three styles are still seen in modern architecture. Each temple was dedicated to a specific god or goddess and it was served for devotees to leave their votive offerings. Every Greek town had its own an open-air theater where used for theater and public meetings.
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Ancient Greeks and the Romans had developed an increased political freedom and a common law to all their citizens was accepted and practiced. Latin word Res publica means “public affairs.” Under the influence of political freedom in Ancient Greece and Rome for the first time developed and therefore civil equality of free people. Greece and Rome is not similar to those of theocracy, which prevailed on behalf of the estate of the priests of the deity, in later periods the history of Greece and Rome, the priests elected by the people for a time as ordinary officials, and the performance of their duties does not remove them from the general duties of a citizen; not only do they not cast, but not class. In Greek and Roman, for all their religiosity had no faith in the divine origin of their political institutions. The state in the ancient world - not the creation of the gods, but the work of man, something which, consequently, can alter the human hands. The first appearance in the world history of civil liberties and freedom of thought happened in the ancient world. Today, we cannot ignore a fairly widespread idea that in one respect and understanding between the exercise of freedom in the ancient world and the new world, there is only the exact opposite. That, indeed, is the case.In the history of the word "freedom", there’s a distinguished difference between the concepts of freedom in the sense of participation in public affairs, and freedom in the sense of personal independence.
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The Pantheon in Italy which still stands.
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For the Greek religious consciousness, especially at this stage, it is not characteristic of the idea of the omnipotence of the deity. Due to the political fragmentation and the lack of priestly class among the Greeks has not developed a single religion. Each god and goddess ruled each city-state. For instance, the goddess Athena in particular is closely linked with the city of Athens, Apollon - with Delphi, Zeus from Olympia, and so on. For the Greek world is characterized not only polytheism, but also the idea of the universal nature. Every natural phenomenon, every river, mountain, grove had its deity. From the viewpoint of the Greeks, the world had not insurmountable boundaries between the human world and the world of gods, heroes were connecting link between them. Such heroes like Hercules, for their deeds attached to the world of the gods. On the other hand, the Romans worshiped strange phenomena of nature and social life.
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As Greeks, the Romans revered was the cult of the gods, personified the different sides of agriculture which was the main occupation of the Romans. Goddess Venus was considered the patroness of gardens, god of abundance and fertility of nature. Since the 3rd century BC. AD, the Roman religion has become a very strong impact have Greek religion. The Romans identified with the Greek gods, the gods of their abstract. Thus, Jupiter was identified with Zeus, Mars Ares, Aphrodite, Venus, Juno with Hera, Minerva with Athena, and others.The widespread penetration of Greek influence in the II century, BC. e. not only led to more exposure of Greek religion and adapt to her Roman religious beliefs. One of the important consequences of the Greek influence was to spread Greek philosophy to Roman society and attitudes of the Greek philosophers of religion and gods. Things began to change around 49 AD. Emperor Nero persecuted the early Christians for their faith and their refusal to sacrifice to the Roman gods. Constantine was a pagan and fought against the Christians until he had a dream. He turned to the bishop who explained him the dream. Constantine also declared that the Christians and the other pagans were to worship freely. He also restored properties that were taken from these people by previous emperors. Theodosius continued Constantine's work. He made Christianity an official religion of the Empire. He passed the law against the pagan religions. In 380 AD, with the birth of the Edict of Thessalonica, Nicene Christianity became the state church of the Roman Empire. Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire.
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Thus, we can conclude that the ancient Roman and Greek civilization are very similar to each other. In some cases, even their culture can be seen as a common Greco-Roman culture. Developing under the influence of the early civilizations of ancient culture has made an enormous contribution to the development of world culture. Extant monuments and sculptures, masterpieces of painting and poetry, are a testament to the high level of cultural development. They are important not only as a work of art, but also social and moral significance. The Greek culture has had a greater influence on the development of Roman due to the fact that it was developed in the earlier period, and Roman culture as if it inherited traits, it was their logical development and certainly adds to it many new features and peculiarities. Therefore, considering the Roman culture can often say that described its features inherent in the Greek culture. Greek culture began to develop a category of scientific thinking, great contribution to the development of ancient astronomy, theoretical mathematics. That is why the ancient philosophy and science have played such an important role in the emergence of modern science and technology development. In general, the culture of antiquity was the basis for the further development of world culture. The Romans became the messengers and expanded the Greek and the Etruscan knowledge within their known world.
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